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Today’s money transmitters are Internet businesses. The money is digital, it might even be cryptocurrency. The business can have customers in every state and nation from day one. The services are diverse and innovative from instant payments between a ridesharing driver and a passenger to custody and exchange of dollars for bitcoin. Western Union’s new contemporaries aren’t just Paypal and Venmo; today they are also Google, Amazon and Coinbase.

And yet, money transmitters must still go regulator to regulator, explain their business, and become licensed in 53 states and territories under statutes that were originally drafted to keep check-cashers honest. Some argue that a federal alternative to that regulatory structure needs to be developed if the US is to stay competitive in financial technologies.

Peter Van Valkenburgh will discuss these issues and Coin Center’s new discussion paper that explores how this federal structure could be developed.